Historically, rural spaces in the United States have encompassed a wide array of political cultures and affiliations, but in the late twentieth century, rural America became a breeding ground for anti-government militancy. Disparate groups coalesced around an ideology grounded in virulent rural anti-federalism. Although farmers today are often beneficiaries of federal programs and payments, anti-federal sentiments run rampant across rural America. The reason, Rebecca Shimoni Stoil argues, lies in the collapse of rural society during the Farm Crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. In Tied to Their Country, Shimoni Stoil examines the immediate and long-term political repercussions of the Farm Crisis. Beginning as an agricultural crisis, it quickly enveloped all of rural America as banks collapsed, Main Street storefronts closed, and small towns became ghost towns. Because the federal government failed to offer farmers viable solutions, previously disparate ideologies converged in this political vacuum to advocate for agrarian America amid growing distrust of federal institutions and intentions. Farmers found their best strategy was appealing to romantic ideas of American traditions, and social conservatives quickly reciprocated, turning farm country into the heartland of social conservatism. The perceived failure of the federal government's response to the Farm Crisis generated distrust, resentment, and a crisis of faith in government that resonates across rural spaces today.
Rebecca Shimoni Stoil is an assistant professor of history at Clemson University and a former journalist.
Introduction: Cultivators of the Earth Chapter 1: Most Precious Part of the State Chapter Two: Failing on the Free Market Chapter 3: Fear and Loathing in the American Countryside Chapter 4: Vigilante Annies Chapter 5: Most Valuable Citizens Epilogue: Lasting Bands
"The Farm Crisis is a vastly understudied subject, and yet it had enormous implications for the political, economic, and social history of the United States. Its reverberations are still being felt throughout the agriculture heartland. Tied to Their Country does an exceptional job of examining the politics of the era and helping the reader understand how and why the farmers of the 1980s found themselves in such a dire situation. It explores not only the political but the cultural problem in which farmers found themselves as they moved from being the majority to a tiny minority."-Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, author of When a Dream Dies: Agriculture, Iowa, and the Farm Crisis of the 1980s "There is a need to understand the political realities of rural America, and a need to grapple more intentionally with the devastating effects of the Farm Crisis. Tied to Their Country offers several concrete contributions to the fields of agricultural, rural, and political history, shifting historical focus back to the intersection of rural identity with rural political economy."-Cory Haala, author of When Democrats Won the Heartland: Progressive Populism in the Age of Reagan, 1978-1992
